Radbroke Hall is a white French chateau-style former
country house in
Peover Superior
Peover Superior is a civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. It is described by the Office for National Statistics as a village surrounded by inhabited countryside. The civil parish ...
,
Cheshire, England. It takes its name from the Red Brook stream that runs through the grounds.
History
Radbroke Hall was built between 1914 and 1917 for Manchester businessman Claude Hardy and his wife Olga. The architect was
Percy Worthington
Sir Percy Scott Worthington (31 January 1864 – 15 July 1939) was an English architect.
He was born in Crumpsall, Manchester, the eldest son of the architect Thomas Worthington. He was educated at Clifton College, Bristol, and Corpus Christi Co ...
. Originally from
Belfast
Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdom ...
, Claude Hardy had a successful textile manufacturing business in
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
. Unfortunately, Claude's death in 1916 left his widow to oversee the completion of the building work alone.
[
The hall is built of Portland stone which was brought by train to a local railway station from Weymouth. Main features of the hall include a white marble staircase, a music room, and an oval dining room.][ Around the hall were some twenty acres of grounds including attractive rose gardens and areas given over to a large variety of ]Rhododendrons
''Rhododendron'' (; from Ancient Greek ''rhódon'' "rose" and ''déndron'' "tree") is a very large genus of about 1,024 species of woody plants in the heath family (Ericaceae). They can be either evergreen or deciduous. Most species are nati ...
. The main hall driveway is flanked by large old beech trees.
The house and parts of the gardens are recorded in the National Heritage List for England
The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, a ...
as designated Grade II listed buildings
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
.
The Nuclear Power Group
With Radbroke Hall being left mainly unoccupied during the 1920s and 1930s, it was sold by the Hardy Family in 1956 to the Nuclear Power Group who built offices and a testing tower on the grounds.
Barclays Technology Centre
The site was purchased by Barclays from The Nuclear Power Group in 1972. Approximately 1,400 staff were relocated from London to the new site. Today the site is home to the Barclays Technology Centre and mainly focuses on supporting the bank's IT infrastructure.
See also
*Listed buildings in Peover Superior
Peover Superior is a civil parish in Cheshire East, England. It contains 29 buildings that are recorded in the National Heritage List for England as designated listed buildings. Of these, two are listed at Grade I, the highest grade, one is ...
References
External links
Virtual tour
{{Coord, 53.27105, -2.34961, display=title, type:landmark_region:GB
Country houses in Cheshire
Buildings and structures completed in 1917
Grade II listed buildings in Cheshire
Grade II listed houses